I was hoping there was a way to configure an aggressive NPC to be well... less aggressive. In Vanilla Fallout 3 a raider will use almost an entire clip on you before he even thinks about taking cover. So to put the question as simple as possible, Am I able to make taking cover to avoid damage a higher priority for aggressive NPC's, rather than inflicting damage on the player?

Thanks

You could start by modifying their combat style, change the 'Take cover chance to 100, and make the 'Cover search radius' larger.
But this isn't the only influence on their behavior. I've noticed that if they have a short range weapon sometimes they will tend to close in to their target anyway.

You could have a look at how Arwen changed the values in Arwen's Realism Tweaks. I'm using it and NPCs no longer blindly charge at you and instead use cover a lot.

Lol - that's where I looked

I'm using it too.